


Christmas and Gingerbread

by oswinry



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-06 20:13:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17351849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oswinry/pseuds/oswinry
Summary: Amelia Pond, Christmas, and men of both the gingerbread and raggedy variety.





	Christmas and Gingerbread

The Christmas after the Raggedy Doctor arrived in Amelia Pond's garden, Aunt Sharon had come home from her meeting with the psychiatrist and said, “Amelia, I thought that perhaps we should do something as a family this year.”  
  
“Why?” Amelia had demanded. “We aren’t family really. And I remember the last time we tried to do something as a family, you ignored me the whole time and then yelled at me when I made a mess.”  
  
Aunt Sharon had compressed her lips and said, “Because it’s Christmas, Amelia. I thought,” she forced a smile, “we might make gingerbread men together.”  
  
“Can I make them raggedy men?” Amelia had demanded, and Aunt Sharon’s face grew sourer than ever, but she answered, reluctantly, “You may make your gingerbread men however you like.”  
  
So Amelia had agreed, and that afternoon she made gingerbread with Aunt Sharon. It didn’t go so well. She spilled flour and cracked an egg wrong so the shells fell in, and Aunt Sharon’s face kept pinching in tighter and tighter. Finally she had exclaimed, “Really, Amelia, how do you expect to ever be able to cook if you continue to be this clumsy?” and Amelia had retorted that she wouldn’t cook, Rory would do it for her until the Raggedy Doctor came back and took her to eat fish fingers and custard all day in alien cities that weren’t dull and boring like boring old Leadworth, and cooking was stupid anyway, and soon she was seething in her room while her aunt continued to pound at batter with a very grim face indeed.  
  
But the next day, Aunt Sharon had the batter chilled and rolled out neat as a pin and there was food coloring, red and green and blue, and Amy made a raggedy Doctor and a police box and played with them until Aunt Sharon had declared them disgusting and thrown them away when Amy wasn’t looking. Amy had screamed at her then, and stomped off to Rory’s house and told him to make her another. He suggested dolls instead, and she had beamed at him immediately and kissed him on the cheek.  
  
“I’ll let you cook for me when we grow up,” she told him, and he had blushed.  
  
The next Christmas, he brought over gingerbread cookies.  
  


* * *

  
“Do you cook, Doctor?” Amy asked with interest.  
  
Rory’s ears pricked up.  
  
“Me? Cook? Why, of course I can cook! Amelia Pond, I will have you know I have introduced pasta to at least three civilizations— one where they don’t even have mouths. They just sort of absorb liquid through their tentacles. That was a hard sell…” he trailed off. “Squintelia! That was the name of the planet! We should visit, Ponds.” He beamed at them. “That will show you I can cook. I bet they still eat pasta–”  
  
“Yes, yes, we all know you’ve invented most of the finest cuisine eaten in five galaxies,” Amy interrupted, rolling her eyes. “I wasn’t asking that. I was asking, can you cook for us. Right now. Not take us off to Squid-whatever and order pasta that’s probably still wriggling–”  
  
“That was one time!” the Doctor protested–  
  
“I don’t care, it was disgusting. I want gingerbread, home-made gingerbread. Tardis-made. Whatever. I want it, and then I want to cut out gingerbread men and make cookies and eat them with hot chocolate.”  
  
“But why?” the Doctor demanded, expression pained. “Squintelia is very nice. It has the most beautiful beaches you will ever see, Amelia Pond. Surely that’s better than boring old gingerbread.”  
  
Amy poked him, hard. “It’s the Christmas season,” she informed him. “I’ve been keeping track. Christmas means gingerbread. So lead the way.”  
  
The Doctor complied, muttering about Squintelia and humans who couldn’t appreciate high culture and cuisine, and Rory followed Amy out the door, trying very hard not to be resentful of the Doctor who could probably bake psychic gingerbread. Or something. Whatever it was, it would be perfectly wonderful and Amy would love it and give that delighted giggle he adored, forgetting completely about all the times Rory had baked her sweets–  
  
“What’s wrong?” Amy inquired. “You look like you have a stomach pain.”  
  
“I’m fine,” Rory muttered, trying to walk faster. Then, feeling guilty: “I always make gingerbread for you at Christmas, that’s all.”  
  
“Oh, stupid face,” Amy smiled, and smacked him. “You didn’t think I’d really forgotten, did you?”  
  
“Well–” Rory began, sensing danger, “yes?”  
  
Amy smacked him harder this time. “The Doctor can’t cook, silly. He’s going to try, and he’s going to destroy another kitchen, and then leave us to make whatever we want. And he’ll bring us somewhere specially nice and Christmassy afterward because he feels guilty and he likes Christmas really.”  
  
Rory felt a little dizzy with all this new information. “That–Amy, that’s downright scary. You’re like one of those birdwatchers on the telly.”  
  
Amy grinned, a little sharply. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about it,” she said, then grabbed his hand. “Come on, he’s getting away.”  
  
It happened just as Amy said it would. The Doctor managed to set off three fire alarms and create sentient gingerbread that he set loose far in the Earth’s past, because, “haven’t you ever heard that nursery rhyme?” he demanded. “The one about gingerbread? Wouldn’t like to cause a paradox. Ha, saved the Earth again.”  
  
Then Amy shoved him out of the kitchen and she and Rory made gingerbread and ate the dough raw. They kissed, afterwards, long and hard, and he could taste the spices on her lips.  
  
But that night, when they had laughed and danced together and celebrated Christmas and love, they cut out gingerbread men and Amy made an extra one with a red bowtie. “For you. Eat it,” she said, dragging the Doctor out of the console room and handing him the little figure.  
  
“I’ve always wanted to be ginger,” was the Doctor’s only comment, and he bustled out of the room to make hot chocolate, grumbling again about necessary repairs and silly human traditions.  
  
But his eyes were soft and Amy’s smile no longer had bitter shards in it and that, Rory decided, made this Christmas wonderful.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed!  
> I can also be found over on [tumblr](https://actual-bill-potts.tumblr.com).


End file.
